


trust me

by euriele



Category: Red vs. Blue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-21
Updated: 2014-07-21
Packaged: 2018-02-09 19:42:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1995471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/euriele/pseuds/euriele
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>North doesn't sleep any more.</p>
            </blockquote>





	trust me

**Author's Note:**

> saw some posts going around about the effects that theta would have on north after freelancer so i decided to write a little thing

It starts gradually. You notice a little twitch in his hands, hear him moving around in his sleep more than he normally does. He stops smiling. The shadows beneath his eyes get darker.

You know it's Theta doing this to him.

You don't know what to do. You don't know how to handle the situation. When he lies awake, eyes staring at something you can't see, you're helpless, because you can't snap him out of his daze. You can't help him when he presses his fingers to his temples and digs in so much you can see blood beading beneath his fingernails, whispering to Theta to just calm down and let him think.

Remember that dumb A.I. theory class, how the Counsellor explained the long term side effects of integration with the A.I. The A.I. weren't meant to be integrated for so long, weren't meant to be tapped directly into a person's system for an extended amount of time. No one had any idea what the effects of long-term integration were.

You do now.

North stops sleeping. Theta's always scared, always talking too fast and thinking too much. And North can't pull him, can't catch a night's rest, because the next day ends up being worse.

He barely eats any more, constantly mumbles away to Theta. Asks the A.I. to just let him think, to just be quiet for a moment so he can think. Theta causes migraines now too, skull-splitting headaches that have your brother curled in on himself with his shirt balled up over his head.

All you can do is sit beside him, just reassure him that you're there and that it'll get better soon.

One day, you suggest getting Theta out of his head. North's eyes go wide; he shakes his head, tells you he couldn't do that to Theta. He cares too much about the little A.I.; too strongly attached to let go.

It keeps getting worse.

"Trust me,  _sestra,_ " North says one day when you shout at him, when you scream about how he needs to get that  _thing_  out of his head. "Just trust me. I can handle him."

You can't. You know he can't.

You know he's too far gone to come back.

So it's up to you to end it.

You aim at his head one day. He's in the middle of another one of his episodes with Theta, too busy wrapped up in his own pain to pay any mind to you. So you load a fresh clip into your pistol, stand back and aim at the back of his head.

But you freeze. You arm shakes.

_You can do it, South,_  you tell yourself.  _You can._

You can't.

It's your brother after all.

 

*

 

You try to bring yourself to kill North four times before you set him up. Each time, you wait until he's preoccupied with Theta before you load your gun and aim at his head. Each time, there's a flicker of a memory at the back of your head - you an your brother fighting back to back in the playground, singing loudly in Russian after a successful mission, carrying each other out of a fight that's gone sour, watching the stars from the roof of your home. They're memories that make your arm waver, that make you lower the gun and punch the wall until a knuckles cracks.

You find out about the monster following you - this huge fucker hunting you called the Meta. You know he's only after the A.I., that he's after Theta.

And you know that's your ticket to putting North to rest.

So you set him up.

You don't get out of it unscathed. The grenade hits the ground behind you, sends you flying. The painkillers are in your system before you hit the ground, but you still scream. You slam into a wall, disappear over the top and hit the ground on the other side.

Dazed, you stare at the ground before you, at the blood already staining the ground. Your HUD sparks; the left side of the visor is cracked. There's shrapnel in your stomach, little pieces of metal that pierced through the Kevlar under suit. You fumble with the syringe at your waist, cry out when you inject the biofoam into your skin.

You can hear North's panicked shout over the comm, can hear him shout your name.

A moment later, he screams too.

" _South, South help!"_  he shouts. " _He's gonna take Theta. He's gonna -_ "

His voice cuts off. You hear him choking, hear him gasping out pleas between breaths. You know this is it.

"I'm sorry,  _braht_ ," you mumble, blood congealing in your mouth.

" _South, please -!"_

His voice cuts off a moment later.

You pass out.

**Author's Note:**

> i can't write north or south really well so feedback would be appreciated
> 
> and if i got the russian words for sister and brother wrong, please for the love of god tell me. i'm really paranoid i fucked it up
> 
> thanks for reading


End file.
